He’d built a life’s path brick by brick

Held together by sand and stick

 

It rivalled her wall of crumbling stone

They stood together completely alone

 

She felt she knew him all of his life

But couldn’t understand the edge of the knife

 

Sharpened by resistance, ready to slice

the red thread between them, not once but twice

 

Once in dreams, another in hope

She tried to bind with frayed rope

 

To save the love that did exist

That blinded him with all he missed

 

He retreated to what he always knew

And clipped the bird of chance that flew

 

Holding tight the dust of path and wall

With the feathers, she then did call

 

“Will the storyteller open the book

And let the listener have a look?”

 

He threw the book, pages all scattered

The ending undone, none of it mattered

 

She gathered the chapters and tried to read

But the words turned red and started to bleed

 

Over her hands, the feathers, and the dust

Were then all sodden with fear and mistrust

 

Her fingers stained she began to think

and started writing with this unusual ink

 

a new story about a path and a wall

and a bird nesting there that was ever so small

 

but it grew over time and flew up to the sky

beyond the moon and the sun and never did die

 

© Katy Hughes 2012